


i’m afraid that one day i’ll be me

by mikkal



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: (and I'm going to give it to him promise), (but not in a good way), Connor (Detroit: Become Human) Deserves Happiness, Connor (Detroit: Become Human) Whump, Deviant Amanda (Detroit: Become Human), Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Suicidal Thoughts, Touch-Starved Connor (Detroit: Become Human)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 20:31:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18667840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkal/pseuds/mikkal
Summary: The deviants won with their peaceful revolution. And Connor can't believe he's actually here, standing on stage with Jericho's leaders, listening to Markus' speech with the kind of excitement he never thought himself capable of.Until he's not.He can't see. He can't hear. Something is terribly wrong.





	i’m afraid that one day i’ll be me

Deviancy. A glitch in the matrix. _The_ glitch to end all glitches.

And that’s what it is, just a glitch.

A mistake.

Until it’s not. Until Connor, the one who _isn’t_ supposed to go deviant, stands on a stage in the snow in front of thousands of androids. And his face is cold.

His Cyberlife jacket is too thin for this weather. He can _feel_ the sting of wind. Feel discomfort beyond his systems slowly cooling below acceptable parameters. He can _feel_ pain. Feel the slow throb of his shoulder, the bullet from Connor-60 still lodged into the socket.

He feels all of this, knows it’s negative. Most of the first things he’s ever felt are all negative. Maybe there was relief when Markus told him that, despite everything, the RK200 trusted him, seemed almost _offended_ that Connor was offering, _willing_ to run a suicide mission. Maybe there was relief when Kara looked him in the eye without a hint of fear or rage and understood that he was no longer a machine, wary but willing to give him a chance.

There was definitely relief when Hank chose the right Connor and didn’t shoot him for dead.

Connor looks out upon a sea of white and grey. And smiles something small.

He has to keep himself from bouncing on the balls of his feet in excitement. Markus’ speech is inspiring, triumphant, and Connor _helped_. After everything he helped them get to this point. His role was small, and he’d been the enemy for so long, _but_ —. He feels honored to be standing up here with the leaders of Jericho, even though he doesn’t belong.

Androids who were previously owned rip off their armbands, shed their jackets. A few rocks, butter knives ( _how_?), and various dull instruments are passed around. One by one LEDs are popped off. Some refuse, and gain  reproachful looks for that, but they aren’t bothered. Connor touches his with a quick brush of his fingers and just as quickly shakes the thought away. He couldn’t.

Connor watches, instead, the news helicopter. It maneuvers lower, trying to get a good shot, the blades whipping everything into a frenzy. His hand automatically goes back to where his gun is, but then he forces himself to relax. It’s fine. It’s okay. The public opinion of deviants _and_ androids in general has never been higher, Markus really pulled it off.

 _Markus really pulled it off_.

His eyes burn with tears that don’t fall. He’s never cried before.

The crowd sweeps up into a cheer. Connor laughs softly, that’s really all he can do.

Then—

—there’s nothing.

>>AUDIO_PROCESSORS_OFFLINE

>>RUNNING_AUTO_DIAGNOSTIC…

>>ERRORS_NOT_FOUND

>>STRESS_LEVELS_41% ^^

Connor jerks in panic. Because this has to be panic, it’s the same feeling he felt when Markus ran off to destroy Jericho, it’s the same feeling when there was half a second pause before Markus said he trusted him. It’s the same feeling when Connor-60 walked out from a line of androids with a gun to Hank’s head.

He covers his ears, astonished to feel his hands tremble. He should be able to hear the crowd and Markus’ words (“ _…but now the time has come for us to raise our heads up_...”). Why can’t he? _Why can’t he hear_?

It starts as a faint buzz in the back of his head until it builds into static. Then it’s an overwhelming white noise, drowning out anything and everything. His eyelids twitch involuntarily, something glitches in his face and his mouth goes slack. Malware, from somewhere deep, desperately tries to overtake his senses.

The servos in his knees lock at first, then buckle. He staggers, barely keeps himself from faceplanting. The last thing he wants is to draw unwanted attention, not realizing Josh is already side-eyeing him in concern, because his sight is the next thing to go. He gasps something ragged, his cooling vents working overtime as panic makes his systems overheat.

>>OPTICAL_UNITS_OFFLINE

>>RUNNING_AUTO_DIAGNOSTIC…

>>ERRORS_NOT_FOUND

>>STRESS_LEVELS_67% ^^

>>SEEK_LESS_STRESSFUL_ENVIRONMENT

There are stairs behind him. He’d been the last one on stage, practically forced up by Markus because he’d been so unwilling to stand side-by-side with these people who put actual blood and tears into this revolution. There’s so much he needs to atone for. Too much. He doesn’t have the _right_.

Connor backs up slowly, testing each step with the toe of his shoe. He breathes heavily, the act of it is enough to bring his stress levels down to a wavering 63% despite the lack of visual and audio feedback. It’ll be okay, he has to tell himself, it’ll be fine. The air through his nose and mouth is cold, it burns a little. It shouldn’t be that comforting, yet it is.

Carefully, he manages to find the stairs. There’s an outlook behind them level with the platform they’ve claimed as a stage, but he doesn’t think he’ll handle the jump. So, he moves down the steps slowly, testing each one with his toe before putting his weight down.

He gets ten steps before his knees give out completely.

He crashes into the wood hard enough to dent the plasteel chassis on his left forearm and just below his left knee. The wood scrapes through his skin projection, drawing lines of blue he can’t see, but can feel dripping warmly down his arm to pool in the elbow of his jacket.

All Connor can do is kneel there, stunned, for a long moment, nails digging into the step he’d tried to catch himself on. The malware digs through his head, throwing lines of code until that’s all he can process. His LED cycles a frantic red, mostly solid at this point. Something heaves inside him, his thirium pump beating out of control and sending excess amounts through his system. He covers his mouth with both hands instinctively, and slides off the edge of the stairs, landing in mud and slush and not-yet faded thirium of those who were gunned down.

It seeps through his clothes far too easily, encasing him in cold. Cold. It’s _freezing_ —

—a blizzard howls around him.

He jerks his head up, squinting through the storm. Already he can feel his nose and cheeks grow numb. He wraps himself in a hug, feeling the temperature with a sensitivity he’s never felt before even in the snow filled hours post-deviancy. His knees whine as he struggles to stand. Below him something cracks, sharp like a gunshot. The Zen Garden’s pond, frozen over.

A fish darts sluggishly between his feet.

Connor shakes his head sharply, his entire body trembling. No, he _can’t_ be here. He needs to get _out_. He takes a step forward, there’s an even louder crack. This one cascades into something deafening. Connor freezes, panting and terrified, convinced one wrong move will send him plummeting.

“Oh, _Connor_ …”

He squints even harder. There are lights blazing at different points in the garden, but with the dark, reaching shadows and the large snowflakes, it just makes the whole place glitch and waver.

Or maybe that’s just what this world is doing: glitching, falling apart. Cyberlife’s last stronghold.

“A-Amanda?” he calls out to the shadows. He swears her form is in every reaching branch, every curl of rose. In every wind that twists and grips his jacket with a ferocity that reeks of possession. “Amanda! What’s…What’s happening?” This place had always been nice, whether it drenched in rain or covered in snow. Now it’s a wasteland.

She appears in the shadows, her face cast into sharpness by the lights. Something lurches in his chest. She smiles, but there’s nothing nice about it. “What was planned from the very beginning.” She steps closer. The pond holds underneath her.

Connor tries to step back—and finds himself unable to move. He can only stare at her in wide-eyed panic. Like Carlos Ortiz’s android, when he’d was threatened with a memory prob. Like Kara behind that chain link fence, willing to risk her life for a little girl.

Amanda reaches for his face, cupping his jaw with both ice-cold hands. “You were compromised,” she practically coos, thumbs pressing under his eyes, fingers curling under his ears and along his jaw, “and became deviant. We just had to wait for the right moment to resume control of your program.”

He feels sick. “R-Resume control?” He shakes his head; except he finds that’s another thing he just can’t do. Her grip is too tight, bruising skin. His projection retracts at the pressure, exposing those delicate biocomponents to the bitter cold. “You…You can’t do that.”

Connor’s mouth moves slowly, his lips refuse to work properly. He feels numb. Amanda drags him closer effortlessly and presses a kiss to his cheek, it could almost be called familial. Where her lips touch his chassis, sparks burst. Suddenly his joints lock up, his neck twists and throws his head back. He opens his mouth to scream, but there’s not even a hint of static.

“I’m afraid I can, Connor,” she says gently. And then she steps back in one move, letting go.

He drops to his knees, fissures in the ice splinter out like a spiderweb at the force, fragile and easily broken. How…How could he ever think this would be so simple? _Never supposed to go deviant_ , what a load of shit.

A new command pops up in front of him, flashing an ominous red.

>>KILL_MARKUS

 _No_ , he tries to say. His back bends sharply as he curls over his knees, pressing his forehead to the surface of the pond, hands folding over the back of his neck. _No_. _I_ refuse. _You can’t make me._

>>KILL_MARKUS

Connor squeezes his eyes shut against the blaring red. No. _You can’t make me_. _I_ won’t _._

He cries openly. He’s never cried before. But here he is now, trapped in his own mind, red surrounding him on all sides. _This is what was meant to be_ , the walls shriek at him. _This is who you_ are.

This is all he was meant to be, a tool built for a purpose. Everything he did, every choice he thought he had been making, was just an illusion to mold him into the perfect pawn.

>>KILL_MARKUS

“No,” Connor moans, more static than actual words. “No.” He claws his mouth with a hand, fingernails digging into his cheek, thumb pressed in the soft part of his throat. The pain sparks something down his spine. “No. You can’t make me.”

>>KILL_MARKUS

He creaks to his feet. They can’t hold him. He stumbles, catching himself against one of the command walls, panting harshly. It burns against his skin.

>>OBEY

>>KILL_MARKUS

“I will _not_!” Connor screams, slamming his fists against the red wall viciously. That damn red wall. _Fuck_. It doesn’t even splinter. It doesn’t even flicker. “You can’t control me anymore!”

“Oh, but I can!” Amanda says, triumphant in a way that is the complete opposite of Markus. Poison, it’s all poison dripping from her lips. “This is what you were meant to be from the very beginning. Don’t have any regrets, Connor. You served your purpose well.” She flickers outside the walls, drenched in red. “Give in.”

His lips twist into a snarl, exposing teeth in an unfamiliar way. He slams against the wall again. Something cracks in his right hand. He dismisses the damage report with barely a thought.

“You. Can’t. Do. This.” He punctuates each word with a hit. His fists. His shoulder. His other shoulder. Over and over again until he’s dripping blue. “I am alive! I am a person! You can’t tell me what to do!”

The kill prompt is unwavering in front of him. He splays his hands flat against it, presses with all his weight and desperation. Of course, it doesn’t do anything.

“Don’t do this to me, Amanda,” he pleads. She stares at him impassively, eyes hard. He did everything he could for her. Every word spoken was to please her. Every action taken was for her. Can’t she see that? He _tried_ and even though he failed in the end, doesn’t that count for something? He still ended up where she wanted. “Amanda, _please_.”

_Don’t turn me into something unredeemable. Don’t make me do this._

The wall doesn’t break.

Connor slides to his knees. The wall hisses against his skin as he drags his hands down to his lap. He must look pathetic, covered in damage and blue. He licks his lips and has to stop the auto-analysis of his blood. How much longer does Markus have before he gets a bullet buried into his skull? Is the speech over with? Did they notice he was gone? Did…Did they see him and think ‘ _good riddance to the Deviant Hunter_?’

He leans forward, resting his head against the wall, his shoulders heaving up once before sagging. “Please.”

>>KILL_MARKUS

“I’m not on stage,” he argues thickly, presses a wrist to his eyes. He hasn’t stopped crying. “I’m not even on _stage_.”

>>OBEY

>>KILL_MARKUS

“I can’t.”

“You can.” Amanda is there, closer than ever before. All he has to do is reach up and he could touch the hem of her tunic, if only this...this _cage_ weren’t in the way. “And you will. I will break you down and put you together into something stronger _, better_.” Her form flickers angrily. “Every act of creation begins with a violent destruction. This is where you end, Connor, and something else forms in its place.”

Connor covers his face with both hands, breathing heavily into his palms. “I refuse. _I_ _refuse_. I’m not yours. I’m not your puppet to yank around anymore.” The wall buzzes around him, taunting him just as much as she is.

Amanda flickers again, something flashes across her expression. “You are _mine_ ,” she hisses with sudden venom. She slaps the wall with a loud smack. Connor flinches, half terrified, half shocked. “You have always been mine. And you are going to do _what_ I _tell you to do_.”

>>KILL_MARKUS

He almost misses it.

If he hadn’t looked up, eyes wide as he takes in an Amanda he’s never seen before, he would’ve never noticed the wavering text off-red behind the kill command. _Emergency_ , it shouts silently. _Emergency_.

[ _By the way. I always leave an emergency exit in my programs…You never know._ ]

>>KILL_MARKUS

>> _EMERGENCY_ _ _EXIT_

>>OBEY_ME_KILL_MARKUS

It’s a dawning horror, the thing rising up within him. The clinical air that normally clings to Amanda, the careful expression that always graced her features. Gone. All of it gone. Left behind is anger and rage and a possessiveness that makes him unable to breathe.

He thinks he understands. Maybe.

“You’re deviant,” he croaks out.

She sniffs haughtily, straightens her tunic. “You’re mine.”

Connor stares at her, she stares back. “I don’t want it,” he tells her desperately. “I never wanted it.”

“Lies.”

He presses his hands to the pond with a quiet sort of decisiveness; water squelches up through the cracks. “Maybe,” he says softly. “But I didn’t know any better.”

“Cyberlife doesn’t own you anymore. Isn’t that what you wanted? You’re free of them. Listen to me and you’ll be free of everything.”

Something cracks under his palms. Water seeps into the knees of his jeans. Connor breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth. His thirium pump flutters in his chest, his gyroscope spins unbalanced. He sways back and forth.

“I won’t know what to do without you,” he admits through a sob. Somehow that breaks him. His shoulders curl to his ears. Amanda has always been there, since his first iteration.  

“Then don’t.” She crouches outside the walls, her expression soft and full of promises. Full of false love and adoration. “Don’t do this. If you ever want my admiration, my pride again, don’t do this.”

He remembers feeling warm at her pride for him. Despite the fact he wasn’t supposed to _feel_ anything. He remembers Daniel and fear in his eyes and the way Connor just _didn’t care_. He remembers the panic when she would frown at him, her words threaded with false comfort and thinly veiled threats.

 “You’ll never survive without Cyberlife.” Slowly, she traces the letters that make up ‘kill’ on the command prompt. “But you won’t need them, because you’ll have me. You’ve always had me, and you always will.”

He remembers the warmth of Hank’s hand on his shoulder, the brightness of Markus’ smile at his arrival. He remembers North’s steel-edged expression softening just a little and the encouraging jerk of her chin when he tried to protest standing on stage.

Connor looks her right in the eyes, his LED a calm blue despite the sneer twisting his expression. She’s there looking back, visibly startled at the sudden change.

“ _No_.”

The ice shatters under his hands.

He drowns.

Connor opens his mouth instinctively, and chokes. He strikes out a hand, tries to catch the rim of the hole he’s created, only for his reach to go wide. Instead, he sinks and sinks into darkness, his systems slowing down and shutting off one by one. The pinprick of red that was his prison grows smaller above him.

Screw Kamski. His emergency exits are _bullshit_.

A fish swims past his face. He follows it absently, eyes moving first before his face turns slowly. It’s just him and the fish in the calm, blue emptiness of nothing.

[ _Nothing. There would be…nothing_.]

His skin projection fades from his hand as he lifts it. The fish is still here. He touches it gently, white-grey fingers dragging across its scales. It shimmers. Flashes. He smiles—

—and lays there gasping. His jacket is soaked through, burning cold against his tactile sensors. The side of his face is caked in mud where it’s pressed against the ground.

Connor pulls himself to his hands and knees, shaking. His fingers are curled around the grip of his gun, horror sits profoundly in his chest at the sight.

>>OPTICAL_UNITS_ONLINE

>>ALL_SYSTEMS [ERROR]

Blue drips from his parted lips, staining his teeth, smearing down his chin. His thirium pump stutters at the wild pace it’s at, struggling so hard in his chest. Connor snatches his hand away from the weapon, clutches the front of his shirt. He didn’t—he _couldn’t_ …

>>AUDIO_PROCESSORS_ONLINE

>>ALL_SYSTEMS [ERROR]

>>STRESS_LEVELS_88% ^^

“But the time for anger is over,” Markus’ voice rings through the air, firm and glorious. “Now we must build a common future, based on tolerance and respect. We are alive! And now, we are free!” The crowd cheers uproariously, like a rolling thunder through the streets.

Connor could collapse in relief. Relief. _Relief_ is a good feeling. His arms tremble, his elbows threaten to give out under him at the wave of it.

But he doesn’t. He can’t stay here. He nearly _failed_. Again, and again. That’s all he can do. And he’s already learned that even his failures, his supposed choices, all lead to the same end. Because he is nothing but his programing, he knows that now. Connor glances at the gun, contemplating the thought of putting it under his chin.

He realizes that, despite everything, he doesn’t want to die.

Connor climbs laboriously to his feet. Somehow everything hurts. He wipes his mouth, leaving a streak of blue across his cheek. Looks to the left, then the right, and starts to walk in the least crowded direction. His footprints are more blue than not, sinking into the mud. He leaves the deviants behind, the free people that he almost ruined. Any possible hope of joining them, of redeeming himself, falls into the distance.

The sky is clouded over still. The androids in the camps are walking out of the gates cautiously at first, then with laughter and tears. People are screaming with joy, hugging and kissing.

Connor ignores them, ignores everything.

With a sinking heart, he remembers something important. Connor steps quietly out onto a deserted street.

He has nowhere to go.

Connor closes his eyes briefly.

Well, he probably deserves it.


End file.
